The rain did not fall anywhere else except 12 Ashwood Crescent, and Detective Evelyn Shaw was becoming drenched waiting in Mrs. Jules' immaculately dry driveway adjacent.
"How long's it been like this?" she asked Officer Jared Heller, who struggled to light a cigarette using wet matches.
"Since about midnight. The neighbors called it in about two AM when they noticed it wasn't letting up." He discarded the cigarette and jammed it behind his ear. "Body's inside."
Evelyn stepped across the unmarked edge where pavement ended and wet grass began. The rain beat against her shoulders like tiny hammers, sharp and unforgiving. She'd seen strange things during her fifteen years on the force, but this one was something else.
The front door was open. The interior of the house appeared to be okay enough. Living room to the right where forensics was already busy. Victim, Nikolai Vetra, lying on the floor near the coffee table. One shot to the chest. No sign of a struggle.
"Anything unusual?" Evelyn asked the forensics team's Moreno.
"Besides the weather? No. Clean shot, up close. This person knew what they were doing."
She made her way through the house, getting to know the property. Kitchen was clean, bedroom on the second floor seemed lived-in but tidy. It was the hall closet that became interesting.
"Hey, Moreno!" she shouted. "You guys check out this closet?"
Children's sneakers filled the bottom shelf. Too tiny for Nikolai, who lived alone in his apartment, the neighbors said. Evelyn leaned down and started to try on pair after pair. In the third shoe; a tiny red sneaker with frayed laces, her fingers came across something crinkled.
Paper, folded in half.
She opened it slowly. It was strange writing. Not quite any alphabet that she could think of, but for some reason her head kept trying to read it. Like when you hear a word in your peripheral and think you know what it is, but when you look at it directly it's all different.
"What's that?" Heller had come in upstairs.
"Note. Can't read it though." She gave it to him.
He stood there for a while looking at it. "This is gonna sound ridiculous, but I think I ought to recognize what this says."
"Yeah. Me too."
They found Nikolai's sister living two towns away. Irina Vetra answered the door but said nothing. Just looked at them with black eyes and stepped aside so they could come in.
Evelyn had dealt with more than her fair share of reluctant speakers. Always something to hide behind, or frightened. But with Irina it was different. Like the silence was a protective shield.
"Ms. Vetra, we need to ask you some questions about your brother."
Irina nodded and gestured towards the couch. Made them instant coffee without even asking if they wanted one.
"When did you last see Nikolai?"
Irina displayed three fingers.
"Three days ago?"
A Nod.
"Was he in any kind of trouble? Money problems, maybe someone threatening him?"
Irina's head was shaking.
This went on for twenty minutes. Yes and no responses, nods and head shakes. Evelyn was getting frustrated, but the set of her shoulders, the way she moved with purpose, reminded her of soldiers she'd known.
"Ms. Vetra," she said finally, "I found something in your brother's home. In a child's shoe."
Irina's expression changed. By a fraction of an inch, but Evelyn noticed.
She held out the note, now in an evidence bag. "Do you have any idea what this says?"
Irina took the bag in trembling hands. Sat looking at the page for a long while. When she looked up, her eyes were wet.
"Where did you find this?"
Her voice was rough, like she hadn't spoken in decades. Which, Evelyn realized, she probably hadn't.
"In a closet at Nikolai's. Red sneaker."
"That was mine," Irina said quietly. "When I was seven."
"What does the note say?"
Irina didn't answer for so long Evelyn thought she'd gone silent again. Then: "It says 'The sky will break when the last secret is told.'"
"What language is that?"
"I don't know. But our grandmother wrote things like this. Little notes, warning stories perhaps. She'd hide them away." Irina's voice was getting stronger. "Nikolai collected them when she passed away. Said they were important."
"Important how?"
"She was from the old country. Before the war. She said there were things people had to recall, even if they couldn't recall why."
Heller was confused. "What things?"
"How to read the signs. How to know when something was coming." Irina set the evidence bag on the table. "She said that someday the sky would tear open, and we'd be ready."
"Ready for what?"
"For what comes after."
The thunder outside provided a low boom. Typical of October, but it had Evelyn glance towards the window nonetheless.
"Ms. Vetra, why have you not been speaking?"
"Because some things are too dangerous to speak out loud." She was gazing at the note again. "But maybe it is time," she went on with a firm expression.
"Time for what?"
"To stop hiding."
The drive back to Nikolai's house took forty minutes. The rain had stopped when they arrived. Rather suddenly, as if a switch had been turned off. The neighbors were starting to come out, pointing upwards.
"Look at that," Heller said.
The clouds overhead rolled along in a way that didn't quite feel natural. Swirling, but purposeful. And a crack, as narrow as a hairline, east to west across the gray.
"Jesus," Evelyn breathed.
More were coming out of their houses now, looking up. But they weren't pointing or shouting or taking pictures with their phones. They were simply watching. As if they'd been waiting for this.
"Detective Shaw?"
She turned around. Irina was approaching them, having driven there in her own car.
"You came back."
"There's more you need to know." Irina's tone was more urgent now, more determined. "Regarding why Nikolai was killed. Regarding what's coming."
The tear in the sky was widening. But the people of Ashwood Crescent just stood there, looking up with the inevitability of people who'd been waiting an extremely long time for something they knew was bound to happen.
"What's going on?" Evelyn asked.
Irina smiled finally. "The truth."
Far above them, the sky split apart like an egg, and light poured through.
But no one looked surprised.
They'd been ready for this their whole lives, even if they couldn't remember why. The grandmother's cryptic messages, hidden in shoes and behind paintings, had been practice. Memories of what blood already knew.
Nikolai had died because he'd tried to warn someone who wasn't ready. Someone who'd murdered him instead of facing what was inevitable.
But now it was here anyway.
The light grew, and Evelyn felt a shift in her chest. A memory of things she'd never learned but somehow knew.
She carried her silence like a weapon, heavier than a two-handed sword, but now, finally, she could set it down.
The sky cracked open, but no one seemed surprised.
They found the note tucked inside a shoe, written in a language no one remembered learning.
And in growing light, they began to remember everything else.
